By David Swanson

For decades, the U.S. public seemed largely indifferent to most of the horrible suffering of war. The corporate media outlets mostly avoided it, made war look like a video game, occasionally mentioned suffering U.S. troops, and once in a blue moon touched on the deaths of a handful of local civilians as if their killing were some sort of aberration. The U.S. public funded and either cheered for or tolerated years and years of bloody wars, and came out managing to believe falsely read more

By Ahimsa Conversations, March 13, 2022

The notion that war is normal and we have to struggle for peace is a fundamental lie. Actually, every war is the consequence of a long, concerted and diligent effort to avoid peace. David Swanson, co-founder of the network World BEYOND War, unravels the lies that accompany most wars – that it is defensive, necessary, humanitarian. The common claim that history is full of wars is misleading because read more

By David Swanson

Bruce Levine’s books have been getting more and more thorough in their debunkings of the claims of psychiatry. His latest is A Profession Without Reason.

Some mental illnesses that have been eliminated include drapetomania, or the mental illness causing enslaved people to try to escape; and homosexuality, or the mental illness causing people to love people that somebody else might wish they wouldn’t. These mental illnesses have been eliminated by ceasing to call them read more

This RootsAction Zoom call from Tuesday, March 8th is the second in a series of events for the recently released RootsAction Education Fund Foreign Policy Primer for U.S. Congressional Candidates.

Download the complete foreign policy primer here: https://progressivehub.net/foreignpolicy

Hosted by Ryan Black of RootsAction and ProgressiveHub, guests Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project, David Swanson of RootsAction and World read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 7, 2022

Here were Russia’s demands for months starting in early December 2021:

• Article 1: the parties should not strengthen their security at the expense of Russia’s security;
• Article 2: the parties will use  multilateral consultations and the NATO-Russia Council to address points of conflict;
• Article 3: the parties reaffirm that they do not consider each other as adversaries and maintain a dialogue;
• Article 4: the parties shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other states in Europe in addition to any forces that were deployed as of May 27, 1997;
• Article 5: the parties shall not deploy land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles adjacent to the other parties;
• Article 6: all member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States;
• Article 7: the parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in the Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia; and
• Article 8: the agreement shall not be interpreted as affecting the primary responsibility of the Security Council of the United Nations for maintaining international peace and security.

These were perfectly reasonable, just what the U.S. demanded when Soviet missiles were in Cuba, just what the U.S. would demand now if Russian missiles were in Canada, and ought to have simply been met, or at the very least treated as serious points to be respectfully considered.

If we set aside items 1-3 and 8 above as less concrete and/or hopeless, we’re left with items 4-7 read more

By David Swanson
Remarks at Code Pink event in Washington D.C. on March 3, 2022
Image Source.

Send aid to Ukrainian friends and aid organizations.

Send aid to organizations helping refugees leaving Ukraine.

Send aid especially that will reach those being refused help for racist reasons.

Share the remarkable media coverage of war victims in Ukraine.

Take the opportunity to point out the war victims in Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., and to question whether the lives read more

LISTEN HERE: https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/paikinswanson